The big data revolution created new possibilities for personalized discovery across a variety of entertainment industries including music, dating, news, retail, and dining. Video is no exception; with discovery opportunities depending on a foundation of quality video data, the management of this data becomes an obstacle and challenge of its own.

Today’s Pay-TV subscribers are offered approximately 20,000 linear titles and thousands of VOD titles over any given 30-day period. As Pay-TV catalogs continue to grow, so will consumers’ frustration with not being able to easily find something to watch. High quality video data is at the core of solving consumers’ video discovery woes. However, in order to unlock the value of video data and deliver highly accurate personalized discovery experiences that consumers will engage with, video service providers must first overcome the challenges associated with the Three Vs of Big Data—volume, velocity, and variety.

The Root Cause: Multiple Video Metadata Sources

Video Service Providers use multiple third-party video metadata sets to create deeper intelligence around video assets.  These sources have tremendous value in terms of enhancing the video discovery experience. Simply put, the more that is known about an asset, the more accurate the match can be between an asset and a viewer.  A few examples include time-based metadata, critical ratings and reviews of titles, as well as entertainment metadata from sources.

The challenge the industry faces is bringing together and making sense of all these different data types and formats to create a better understanding of tens of thousands of assets. When this is done successfully, third-party metadata can be leveraged to create powerful applications that enable consumers to find video content that aligns with their preferences.

These video data challenges led Digitalsmiths to launch its Unified Data Service™ to allow video service providers the ability to easily create a single video metadata index that eases the ingestion, aggregation, reconciliation, storage, and ongoing management of these robust datasets, including:

• Digitalsmiths’ Proprietary Scene-Level, Time-Based Metadata
• Digitalsmiths’ Proprietary Mood Metadata
• Service Provider’s VOD Catalogs Data
• Service Provider’s Linear Schedule Data
• Service Provider’s Specific Third-Party Data Sources
• Pre-Mapped Third-Party Data Sources – The Unified Data Service is currently pre-mapped to key third-party industry sources, speeding up implementations and spans a variety of functions including:
  • Industry Leading Linear Schedule Data
  • Industry Leading VOD Catalog Data
  • Asset-Level Data
  • Over-The-Top Data
  • Social Network Data
  • Critic Ratings & Reviews
  • Video Trailers

Digitalsmiths’ Seamless Discovery™ combines data from the Unified Data Service with both explicit and implicit viewer behavioral data to power the industry’s leading personalized video discovery applications including search, recommendations, social discovery, mood discovery, voice navigation and more.

Unlocking the Fourth ‘V’ of Big Data: Value

To power personalized video discovery experiences the data from the Unified Data Service needs to be combined with Viewer Behavioral Data, then reconciled in real-time, a process that requires extensive video data expertise and modern technology for managing robust datasets. By using Digitalsmiths Unified Data Service and Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery® to deliver personalized video discovery experiences to their viewers, video service providers can also solve many of their data integrity issues, improve their overall infrastructures, and unlock the elusive 4^th V of Big Data—value—in the form of higher engagement, satisfaction and revenue.

Click here to read the press release on Digitalsmiths’ Unified Data Service

The complex task of evaluating, selecting and implementing a personalized video search and recommendations platform is new to a lot of, if not most, service providers.  There are a lot of considerations from the business side to the technical side, as well as what to think about internally and what and how to focus on vendors. To assist service providers in selecting the personalized video search and recommendations platform that is right for them and their subscribers, Digitalsmiths has created an unbiased guide outlining the key considerations and questions for every stage in the decision-making process including:

• The five steps to include in the decision-making process
• Key considerations for internal teams involved
• Key questions to ask the vendors each step of the way
• Helpful hints to ensure the chosen platform meets business goals and improves subscriber satisfaction

Click here to download Digitalsmiths’ Guide to Evaluating Personalized Video Search and Recommendations Platforms.

The profile-based discovery experiences powered by Digitalsmiths will connect Time Warner Cable subscribers and users of i.TV applications, including Nintendo TVii, to video entertainment based on their personal viewing behavior and preferences, helping consumers easily find TV shows, movies, and live events they’ll enjoy across live TV, on-demand and OTT offerings.

TWC subscribers will be able to enjoy these personalized experiences across all of their connected devices including iPads/tablets, mobile phones, laptops, set-top boxes and now Roku boxes with TWC TV.

With over 12.4 million subscribers, Time Warner Cable is one of the top five largest pay-TV providers in the country. i.TV  is the maker of the most downloaded mobile TV guide application and several second screen and social TV experiences for brands, including Nintendo TVii for Nintendo Wii U, which sold over 400,000 units in its first week on shelves.

You can read more about this announcement on Multichannel News.

To kick off what we believe will be the biggest year yet for personalized discovery, Digitalsmiths is headed to Las Vegas Jan. 7-11 for CES 2013 where we will be showcasing Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery®, the industry’s most comprehensive personalized search and recommendations platform. To see Seamless Discovery in action and talk about how our technology can help you drive satisfaction, engagement and revenue, here are four ways to connect with us at the show:

1. Schedule a meeting at one of our Demo Suites at ARIA
Meet one-on-one with a Digitalsmiths video discovery expert to learn more about our personalized search and recommendations solutions. Email us to schedule a demo.

2. Swing by “The Gracenote Lounge”
See a demo of the integration between Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery® and Gracenote Entourage™ at The Gracenote Lounge located at The Cosmopolitan. The lounge is located on the 4th floor in the Nolita 1 room and is open Tuesday – Friday from 8:00am – 7:00pm.

3. Attend our session at 2nd Screen Summit

• Title: Leveraging the 2nd Screen for Content Discovery
• Speaker: Ben Weinberger, Digitalsmiths CEO
• Date/Time: Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, at 1:00pm
• Location: The Winn, Las Vegas

4. Name a time and place that’ll work for you
Let us know when and where you would like to meet, and a Digitalsmiths team member will come to you. Email us to schedule a meeting.

We look forward to seeing you at CES 2013!

Selected by Streaming Media’s seasoned editorial and publishing staff, the Streaming Media 100 recognizes the companies that are doing the most interesting, innovative and important work in online video streaming.  According to Streaming Media Editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, the list separates, “the fly-by-nights from the ones with staying power, and the has-beens from the veteran companies that continue to innovate and grow not just their customer base but the industry as a whole.”

The Readers’ Choice Awards, as their name implies, give Streaming Media readers—the end users of the products, technologies and services covered by the publication—the opportunity to recognize the companies that deliver superior solutions and enable the best consumer experiences. This year’s contest drew more than 58,000 votes, making it the most popular ever. Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery® took home the award in the hotly contested Search and Discovery Platform category.

It’s an honor to be recognized by not only Streaming Media’s editorial and publishing staff, but also the people who really matter—those who use online video technology everyday. As Digitalsmiths continues to deliver the most innovative personalized video discovery solutions for service providers, content providers and consumer electronics manufacturers, we look forward to the honors that accompany staying at the top of our field.

Read the full announcement regarding the launch of UVideos here.

By leveraging Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery® to power search and recommendations for UVideos, Univision is ensuring that users can easily find the most relevant content available, whether it be telenovelas, sports, news or entertainment programming, anytime, on any connected device.

Univision’s decision to create UVideos was based on research on U.S. Spanish-speaking Hispanic consumers conducted by Nielsen, a global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy. According to the research, the most important factors for consumers when considering any digital video service offered in the U.S. are: the ability to consume content on multiple devices, variety of content, cost, and the ability for everyone in the household to easily search for or find desired content. With UVideos, Univision is delivering the social, personalized, multi-screen experience that today’s consumers want, making it a model for other content owners and distributors.

Based on our survey of over 2,000 pay-TV subscribers in North America, Digitalsmiths’ “Q4 2012 Video Discovery Trends Report: Consumer Behavior Across Pay-TV, VOD, OTT and Next-Gen Features,” not only sheds light on cord cutting, but also offers key insights into consumers’ viewing habits and their relationships with pay-TV providers. The report also reveals consumer opinions on next-gen discovery technologies that service providers could leverage to improve the consumer experience.

This is just the first of a series of consumer surveys that Digitalsmiths will be conducting and distributing every quarter in order to stay in front of consumer opinions and behaviors, and track how these change over time.  By regularly conducting this research, Digitalsmiths is able to ensure that our Seamless Discovery platform accommodates actual consumer needs and wants, which is key in providing our customers with the relevant, powerful solutions they need to deliver superior experiences to their subscribers.

In this quarter’s report, we put a number on VOD revenue that service providers are losing to OTT and other movie rental services. We found that while consumers are frequently renting movies, the service provider’s VOD catalog is not the primary source. As a result, pay-TV providers are losing $3-15 per subscriber per month across roughly half of their subscriber bases, representing millions in lost revenue.

We also reveal the shocking reasons behind why pay-TV subscribers are using OTT and other movie rental services instead of renting from their service provider, and discuss how providers can address two of the top reasons, convenience and ease of finding something to watch, by leveraging personalized discovery technology.  We believe that by breaking down the silos around their VOD catalogs and surfacing relevant VOD titles to subscribers through personalized search results and recommendations, pay-TV providers can reclaim VOD revenue and boost ARPU by 5-15 percent.

A few of the other questions answered in this quarter’s survey include:

• Is the hype surrounding cord-cutting valid?
• How much time do consumers spend channel surfing versus watching DVR’d content?
• Why are pay-TV providers losing millions in VOD revenue?
• Are consumers promoting their viewing activity via social channels?
• How do consumers view new trends/features for improving their viewing and discovery experiences?

“Q4 2012 Video Discovery Trends Report: Consumer Behavior Across Pay-TV, VOD, OTT and Next-Gen Features” is available for download here.

Schedule a meeting
Click here to schedule a one-on-one meeting and demo to learn more about our personalized discovery solutions and how they can help your company drive consumer engagement, satisfaction and revenue.

Stop by the Digitalsmiths booth
Stop by our booth for a demo of Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery®.
Hall: 14
Stand: 421

Attend our session at 2nd Screen Summit
Title: Monetization’s Impact on Europe’s 2nd Screen Ecosystem
Speaker: Ben Weinberger, Digitalsmiths CEO
Date/Time: Sept. 8, 2012 at 6:00pm
Location: Okura Hotel, Amsterdam
Click here for more information about this event.

While we are incredibly excited and honored to have broken into the top 1,000, we are already looking forward to next year’s list. Digitalsmiths has seen exponential growth since the launch of our Seamless Discovery platform, and we are poised to accelerate that growth as we continue to deliver industry-leading personalized discovery solutions to today’s top service providers, content providers, and consumer electronics manufacturers.

Our full Inc. 5000 profile can be viewed here.

Out of a field of more than 150 entries from 102 organizations in 23 countries, Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery has been selected as a finalist for the ConnectedWorld.TV Awards in the category for Connected Content Technology: Interfaces, applications and browsers. Presented in association with IBC Connected World, the awards recognize “pioneers in the business of content everywhere.” The awards ceremony takes place during IBC on Sept. 10 at Amsterdam’s Hotel Okura.

If you’re headed to IBC, you can check out our industry-leading Seamless Discovery platform at booth 14.421. We’ll have details about other ways to see Digitalsmiths at the show shortly, so please stay tuned!